But Wisconsin, though highly publicized because of this year’s confrontation between Governor Scott Walker and Labor Unions, is far from the only state being subject to this baseless attack on voters. Here is a brief rundown of other places this type of legislation can be found:

South Carolina

Governor Nikki Haley signed SC’s Voter ID bill into law with the Black Eyed Peas playing in the background, something some minority groups took great offense to since the legislation is widely viewed as an attack on minority populations. But not only minority representatives are taking offense to the bill. Haley upset many of the estimated 178,000 people impacted by the bill with a classless defense: “If you can show a picture to buy Sudafed, if you can show a picture to get on an airplane, you should be able to show a picture ID to (vote),” she said. Of course, many people in South Carolina can not afford medicine, let alone a costly airplane flight, so this absurd and out-of-touch argument means nothing to anyone the Governor needs (or perhaps doesn’t need) to convince. Going one further, SC’s law eliminates student IDs as a valid form of voter identification. More from The State.

Governor Rick Scott beat almost every new governor to the punch, signing sweeping election reforms into law last Thursday. The Orlando Sentineldescribes Florida’s rules changes: “The new law dramatically overhauls state voting laws by changing longstanding procedures that allow a person to change his or her registration or name at the polling place, puts in new requirements for third party voter registration groups and shortens the number of days available for early voting.” Governor Scott has yet to make a public statement about the measure which Democrats and activist groups such as the ACLU have petitioned the Justice Department to block.

Texas

The House passed Voter ID in Texas on May 16th, making the claim that it “would increase voter participation because of greater confidence in honest elections.” An earlier version of the bill, which passed the Senate in March, made its way through the House despite…you got it…ungranted amendments and emotional calls to halt the legislation by Democrats. “I think that we’ll look back in shame,” Marc Veasey (D-Fort Worth), told reporters then. Five forms of identification, including a Texas Concealed Handgun License but excluding a student ID, have been approved. As always, legal action has been guaranteed by the law’s opponents.

Pennsylvania

Opponents of Republican Daryl Metcalfe’s Voter Suppression bill in Pennsylvania have argued that the law aims “to fix a problem we don’t have by exacerbating two problems we do have.” Those two problems are voter turnout and the budget deficit. The claim has been made that “11 percent of eligible voters don’t have official photo ID” in Pennsylvania, a striking number that the Brennan Center suggests is the case nationwide. “It stands to reason,” Philly.com continues, “that measures such as Metcalfe’s will only make things worse, especially for poor people, who are most likely to fall into this category.” We’ll get to the cost associated with the law in a moment.

Minnesota

Democratic Governor Mark Dayton has made a name for himself so far this term, speaking out in favor of working people and providing a budget proposal that was lauded for its ability to truly tackle Minnesota’s fiscal situation. The Governor is expected to veto a GOP Voter ID measure, but that measure has yet to reach his desk because of apparent violations of open meetings rules. Similar violations have been witnessed in Wisconsin. In Minnesota, “Rep. Ryan Winkler said leaders of the conference committee resolving two voter ID bills did not properly notify interested parties they were meeting last Saturday.” Sherri Knuth with the League of Women Voters said it was “abnormal” to amend the bill out of the public eye, though no conclusions have yet been made as to whether the foul play was devious or simply lazy.

North Carolina

The common argument of protecting the “integrity” of voting has been used in North Carolina where Senator Debbie Cleary (R-Cleveland) authored the Senate Voter ID bill which mirrors a House bill introduced earlier. 701,000 North Carolinians do not have a driver’s license, according to the Charlotte Observer, but Governor Bev Perdue, a Democrat, is expected to veto Voter ID should it make it’s way to her desk.

New Hampshire

In New Boston, NH an interesting thing happened. A local polling station conducting a special election for a House seat put up a sign that read: “Per pending legislation you will be required to produce a photo ID in order to receive a ballot. Please have your photo ID ready before you approach the ballot clerk. Thank you.” The outrageousness of this apparent dry run of an as-yet-realized law has many up in arms. “So what was the point?, the Nashua Telegraph asked. “To determine how many voters would show up without a photo ID? To gauge how they would react when told they wouldn’t be able to vote as they had done in the past? To see how much of a fuss they would make before someone felt inclined to inform them this was all part of a grand charade?” Blue Hampshire notes that the soothsaying sign fiasco occured “On the same day House Republican Speaker Bill O’Brien was defending SB129, a voter ID bill, in a hearing of the House Finance Committee.” New Hampshire Democratic Party Press Secretary Harrell Kirstein called the bill “a disgrace for the state that hosts the first presidential primary election every four years” and “at odds with the core principles of our American Democracy.”

Missouri

Voters in Missouri will have a chance to voice their opinions on both Voter ID and early voting procedures in next year’s election, according to the Kansas City Star. Both the Senate and House have approved the measures, but current law prohibits such measures from being enacted. “Including both measures in the state constitution is viewed as necessary because the courts have struck down statutory voter-ID requirements as unconstitutional.” Republicans have made the claim that “close elections” in Missouri require extra fraud prevention. Democrat Julie Justus replied that “It should be the policy of the state to make sure that more people vote, rather than less,” and that “fears that voter fraud is rampant in this state are completely misguided.” More on that in a moment.

Tennessee

The Attorney General in Tennessee has taken a position not seen in any other state Voter ID debate, issuing a legal opinion that Voter Suppression is unconstitutional because the state does not provide a costless way of obtaining a valid photo ID to its constituents. This would constitute a poll tax. The TN Senate passed Voter ID in February and the House took it up last week. The AG’s full opinion is HERE.

The common thread across all states introducing Voter Suppression laws is the claim by GOP legislators that voter fraud is rampant, a problem that must be dealt with. The fact is, however, that there is absolutely no evidence to support this claim.

The aforementioned Brennan Center for Justice recently released a brief, “The Truth About Voter Fraud,” that drew several conclusions including “the unsubstantiated specter of mass voter fraud suits a particular policy agenda” and “fraud by individual voters is both irrational and extremely rare,” adding that “Even for the few who view voting merely as a means to an end…voter fraud is a singularly foolish way to attempt to win an election. Each act of voter fraud risks five years in prison and a $10,000 fine – but yields at most one incremental vote. The single vote is simply not worth the price.”

Further Brennan Center research found that Missouri experienced overall voter fraud rates of 0.0003% in 2000 and 0.0001% in 2004, while 0.0006% was found in New Hampshire in 2004, 0.0004% in New Jersey in 2004, and 0.000009% in New York in 2004.

What’s worse for the states than the misleading claims of voter fraud prevalence are the costs associated with pursuing the bills. These costs include printing valid photo IDs for individuals who do not have them, since they must be provided free of charge to avoid constituting a poll tax; the cost of training polling staff to accurately perform their updated duties; and the cost of the bureaucratic shift caused by the changing of long-standing procedure. There is a cost incurred by the voter, regardless of the gratis nature of the IDs, because many individuals must travel to obtain their cards, something that is not always easy for the poor and elderly.

The most thorough repudiation of the fiscal drawbacks of Voter Suppression comes from a Democrats.org report, “Real Cost of Photo ID,” which suggests that 36 states with collective budget shortfalls of $97 billion have introduced Voter ID laws despite the undeniability of their cost. “In order to estimate the real cost of photo ID legislation,” the report reads, “we analyzed the actual costs of implementing photo ID regimes in Indiana and Georgia alongside average costs predicted in 17 state fiscal notes. We found that if each of these 36 states enacts photo ID legislation, taxpayers across the country will pay at least $276 million and up to $828 million for this unnecessary legislation.”

The report provides a chart of the state-by-state projected cost of Voter ID bills:

The Democrats.org report may be the most accurate because their calculations include “the immediate costs of the legislation as well as the implementation necessary to satisfy constitutional scrutiny” and because their estimates are based on actual costs incurred in other states, such as Indiana and Georgia, that have already implemented the laws. “The problem of voter impersonation, which is the only type of fraud photo ID could conceivably address,” the report points out, “is less likely to occur than a person being struck by lightning.”

Whether you think the Right Wing’s motivation for Voter Suppression is racial, “fear-based” with respect to upcoming elections, or just plain evil, the facts are clear. This is a solution in search of a problem; it achieves little other than to disenfranchise, or at the very least discourage, large swaths of low-income and transient (i.e. student) populations that often vote for Democrats; it is cost-ineffective relative to its results and, perhaps most notably, it represents what might be called an over-reaching, big government policy, something the GOP has grown increasingly fond of in the face of vocal opposition by the little guy.

About the Author: Coop

employd [at] wepartypatriots [dot] com -- the editor of We Party Patriots.

7 Comments on “With Voter Suppression, the Right Wing Rolls Out a Dubious, Nationwide Attack on Americans”

You’ve got an ally in me. I am a member of the Ward 19 Democratic Committee in Boston. We are actively registering new voters amd this will be of great detriment to our efforts. I am not currently a member of a union. Please let the local leadership of the AFLCIO know about me and tell them to remember their allies when they are supporting candidates for public office. Thank you. toast

The reason few or no comments have been/were received about the 36 state Voter Suppression is most of the disenfranchised aren’t provided w/info. Local news media “soft pedals it [if at all], National media doesn’t give a shit, so……. Not everyone can afford or own a computer, have cable or satellite; and dtv channels don’t work; tv is no longer free. So by crippling people with the least; by bargaining away social safety nets, education, jobs, now voting; guess Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness are next.

[…] Republicans in 36 states are going after the most sacred American right—the right to vote. The We Party reports that through a myriad of proposals, they are trying to suppress the votes of traditionally […]

[…] to vote at the polls, would have led to the disenfranchisement of thousands of Wisconsin citizens. Here are some statistics on who does not have the photo ID that the law requires in Wisconsin: 23% of voters 65 and over 17% […]